Witnesses: inadequate Benghazi response

Gregory Hicks, former deputy chief of mission in Libya, testifies before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's hearing on the deadly assault of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi in Washington, Wednesday, May 8, 2013. Hicks described a 2 a.m. call from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in the middle of the assault, amid confusion about the fate of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and fears about the safety of additional American personnel. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
— AP

Gregory Hicks, former deputy chief of mission in Libya, testifies before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's hearing on the deadly assault of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi in Washington, Wednesday, May 8, 2013. Hicks described a 2 a.m. call from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in the middle of the assault, amid confusion about the fate of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and fears about the safety of additional American personnel. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
/ AP

WASHINGTON, D.C.  A trio of State Department officials on Wednesday gave emotional and detailed testimony about the September attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, calling their government’s handling of the tragedy inadequate and embarrassing.

Four Americans died in the assault, including two former Navy SEALs from Encinitas and Imperial Beach and a State Department information officer who spent his childhood in San Diego. Their family members attended the hearing in a packed chamber before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista.

The witnesses’ nearly six hours of testimony resurrected questions about the way the Obama administration originally characterized the attack and the level of responsibility that then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton should have had over security at the outpost.

The most impassioned testimony came from Gregory Hicks, the former deputy chief of mission in Libya. In sometimes halting speech, he said the storming of the U.S. consulate and a nearby annex was clearly an organized offensive by terrorists — not a spontaneous demonstration that turned violent.

In his opening statement, Hicks said he loved every day of his job until the Benghazi incident.

“I have pledged ... that none of us should ever again experience what we went through in ... Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012.”

As he manned his station at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, some 630 miles from Benghazi, Hicks received regular updates on the assault, including a dramatic and brief phone conversation with the Ambassador Chris Stevens: “Greg, we’re under attack,” Hicks said the ambassador told him shortly before the line went dead.

A short time later, Hicks said, he got a call from the Libyan prime minister announcing Stevens’ death. Hicks said he later learned that Sean Smith, the State Department information officer, was killed as well.

Hicks also testified that he was shocked upon learning that a four-member special-forces team was ordered to stay in Tripoli, and that no U.S. aircraft could fly over the compound. He believed that such a flight would have deterred the terrorists from waging a second wave of the attack that killed former SEALs Tyrone Woods of Imperial Beach and Glen Doherty of Encinitas, who were battling the attackers from a rooftop. Woods and Doherty were serving as private security specialists in Libya.

A Pentagon spokesman on Wednesday said keeping the special-forces team in Tripoli was deemed the most prudent course. “We continue to believe there was nothing this team could have done to assist during the (second) attack in Benghazi,” George Little said.

During one part of his testimony, Hicks was asked for his opinion of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice’s description of the attack as likely being linked to protests in Egypt and Libya over an anti-Islam video. Rice made that comment while representing the Obama administration on a round of TV news shows.

“I was stunned. My jaw dropped and I was embarrassed,” Hicks said.

He also asserted that he has been chastised and effectively demoted by his State Department bosses for raising questions about Benghazi. Both Republicans and Democrats on the committee told Hicks they would not tolerate any retribution against him. The State Department on Wednesday rejected Hicks’ contention that he had been demoted or treated unfairly.

Another witness, Eric Nordstrom, criticized an internal State Department review of the Benghazi assault conducted by former Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Adm. Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Their Accountability Review Board report highlighted security failures, a finding that led to the resignation or reassignment of four State Department managers.

“It is not what is contained within the report that I take exception to, but what is left unexamined,” said Nordstrom, the former regional security officer in Libya. “Specifically, I’m concerned with the (board’s) decision to focus its attention at the assistant secretary level and below.”

Nordstrom said he reviewed planning documents for operations in Libya’s capital and Benghazi, drafted and approved at the undersecretary of management level or above, and found security to be woefully inadequate. Required security waivers for facilities deemed vulnerable were missing, he said.

“Waiver requirements for buildings solely occupied by the U.S. government overseas must be approved by the secretary of state and cannot be delegated. Since there is no ... waiver on file, the obvious question for both the committee and the (board) is if the secretary of state did not waive these requirements, who did so by ordering occupancy of the facilities in Benghazi and Tripoli?”

The third witness was Mark Thompson, the State Department’s acting assistant secretary for counterterrorism. He said all U.S. personnel in Libya were edgy on Sept. 11 because of the terrorist attacks on the same date in 2001.

“Certainly on the anniversary of 9/11, we all had our antennae up,” he said.

During the witnesses’ testimony, Democrats on the committee acknowledged the security shortcoming in Benghazi but said Issa and the GOP had turned a bipartisan national-security issue into a highly charged, partisan battle based on nonexistent or skimpy evidence. They said the material presented Wednesday was little more than a “rehash” of information that emerged during an oversight committee hearing in October.

Issa said he was committed to learning why consulate requests for more security in Benghazi were brushed aside and whether the Obama administration purposely downplayed the attack for political reasons.

“Their families deserve answers,” he said of the victims. “We also want to make certain that our government learns a proper lesson from this tragedy so that it never happens again and that the right people are held accountable.”

Moments after the hearing, Patricia Smith of Clairemont, mother of Sean Smith, the information officer, said she now has an inkling of what caused her son’s death. “I am very happy with what I did hear,” she said, adding that it was an exhausting session and she needs time to further process the testimony.

Charles Woods, father of Tyrone Woods, traveled to Washington from his home in Hawaii. He said that despite the ongoing political posturing, he believes both Republicans and Democrats want to get to the full truth about Benghazi.

“I am very encouraged,” Woods said. “I think think there’s going to be quite a few hearings, and I think that when this process is over with, we’re going to have all the answers.”